How To Be A Better Fan

I grew up in New York City, where people live - literally - stacked on top of each other in tiny boxes, cheek by jowl, in such an ungodly manner that you are often technically in closer proximity to your neighbor in the next flat than you are to your own kitchen. The whole city is like that - swarms of humanity force fed into domestic cubicles to give them the faint semblance of independence.

And growing up in this way, I learned early on that the best way to be a good neighbor was not to lend a cup of sugar, not to ask how your day went or how your kids are, and not to offer to help patch the roof . . .

The most loving caring, thoughtful thing you could do to for you neighbor was to leave them the fuck alone. If you accidentally catch their gaze, a forced friendly smile, nod, and “Evening” is plenty. Then give them the gift of fucking the hell off.

Now this is an extreme case, I realize, and before we get there I am not advocating telling those you stan for to fuck off, nor for absolute self-fuck-offery. But there are certain parallels between shoebox city dwellers and the expansive lives of the glorious and famous. One lives in a dearth of physical space, the other lives in a dearth of what we in California call “energetic” space.

If you are famous, people are spilling all over into your “space,” whether they mean to or not. It is tiresome and exhausting - to a certain kind of person, gifted enough to actually do the thing that MAKES them famous. Some famous people are indeed attention sucks and do love - nay, do *require* - the constant adulation and invasive “vibing” from their followers. They are empty enough inside that they welcome your filling, like Boston creme in a hollow donut shell.

But for many, dare I say most, famous people, the opposite is true. The thing that brought them their gifts was an all encompassing introversion, which allowed them to tune quietly into the music of the spheres within AND the sensitivity to intuit what those without needed to feel whole. For these people - and there are more now than ever - worshippers are indeed worse than haters.

We all have haters. Nobody likes them, but once you either thicken your skin or see their hatred as validation of your achievements, they can be managed. But worshippers are just haters in reverse. They are pre-haters. Because they have elevated you so far beyond what you know yourself to really be that they are virtually begging for you to fall off the pedestal. The more adulation they give you, the higher and higher the likelihood that you won’t meet it. And in that moment, *crash* they can flip on a dime and become superhaters.

And as a famous person, what you feel from your worshippers is *pressure.*. Constant pressure from them to achieve and sustain the perfected state of glory that they have conjured in their minds about you. And this pressure is exhausting, especially because what made you famous in the first place actually was the ability to achieve greater things than the average schmuck could and to withstand the pressures to get there. But for the upwardly notable, that can quickly become a trap. Success builds in the pressure not to fail enough on your own, but when the worshippers come out of the woodworks to push you beyond what you know about yourself to be true, you find yourself - in your sensitivity - needing to take care of that fake image for them because when it falls away, the vitriol of disappointment will rain down 10 times harder than a generic internet troll.

After all, the trolls have played their card. There’s nowhere for them to go but up. But *worshippers” hold their dormant hate up their sleeve like a trump card of their will. Their worship is a constant passive threat that can keep you in their thrall forever. Haters use their condemnation as a power play to elevate themselves. But once they fire the gun, it’s over. Worshippers are Schroedinger’s haters, keeping the option - and their leverage - alive forever. They leverage their worship for their own eternal glory.

So yes, as a fan, if you really love your artist/philosopher/writer/(gulp)politician, the simple route is to take the New York City approach and just self-fuck, and in the meantime buy their stuff and leave them nice reviews.

OK.

But you can actually do a little better.

If you have someone whose work has moved you, helped you, changed your life, you can simply thank them.

“Thank you” is enough.

“Thank you for your book. It really helped me see things differently and improved my marriage.”

“Thank you for your album. It really moved me and is so inspired that I listen to it all the time.

“Thank you. Your movie gave me the courage to do the thing I feared, and now I am happier and more successful than ever.”

That’s it.

When you thank someone for something, it sort of completes the “transaction.” There is a “letting go” with a thank you, because in a way you’ve done all you can.

You’re not asking them to love you back. You’re not asking them to “really get” you. You’re not dumping your life story, hopes, and dreams on them. You’re not holding on forever like some worship-troll. You’re just thanking them and letting it go. They receive the appreciation, but there are no “tentacles” attached to it that imply that you want more from them, that you expect more from them, that you imagine they don’t have 10s of 1000s of other fans and that you are the one true light of their eyes and they need to know all about you.

Because actually they DO have 10s of 1000s of fans, and many of them expect the same thing.

There are only so many hours in the month and so many kilowatts in your star power to spend on these people. It is more than humans were built to carry.

But you don’t have to turtle and ignore them. You can just tell them what they did for you and thank them for it. And with that you can let them go.

And that’s how you can be a better fan. And the better the fans are, the more fan worthy creators will rise to the surface, confident they can shine without being sucked dry with expectation, cloying praise, and the constant unspoken threat of treachery and hidden haterdom.

We will all be rewarded with more great work to praise when the landscape of stardom becomes more bearable to those who grant us those rewards. I promise.